1,721,194 research outputs found
Psychiatric disorders
No full textThis chapter summarizes the most significant gender influences on mental health in terms of illness incidence and prevalence, clinical presentation, course, and response to treatment. Several mental disorders including major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and eating disorders are considered in different sections. Depression is twice more frequent in women than in men. Moreover, men and women show differences regarding presentation, course, treatment response, and outcome. Women affected by depression show higher recurrence and atypical features; they have generally an earlier onset, more severe, longer, and recurrent depressive episodes, and a lower quality of life than men do. Women are also more likely to have a comorbid anxiety, eating or somatoform disorder, and more frequently than men, they attempt suicide (although lethal suicide is more probable to happen in men). Psychopharmacological treatment of depression also might present significant gender dissimilarities; still, there is no clear consensus on whether there are gender-related differences in antidepressant efficacy. There is a significant gender difference in terms of lifetime prevalence of bipolar disorder type II, with more affected women, while both genders show a similar prevalence of bipolar disorder type I. Women usually have an older age of onset and they typically manifest a depressive polarity at the onset and a predominance of depression phases during lifetime. Women are also more likely to undergo mixed and seasonal episodes and have an increased risk of developing rapid cycling mood disturbances. Bipolar disorder in men is characterized by manic onset, recurrence of manic phases, and by lower treatment adherence. Comorbidity of psychiatric (eating and anxiety disorders) and medical (thyroid disease, migraine, obesity) conditions are more common in women, while substance use disorder is more common in men. There is no evidence that women and men suffering from bipolar disorder differ significantly in treatment response to mood stabilizers. Schizophrenia also has significant gender differences: affected males, normally younger at the onset than females, present more severe negative symptoms, worse cognitive impairment, more frequent hospitalizations, and are more likely to commit acts of severe violence. In detail, incidence rate of early onset is higher in males than females, while at older onset women predominate. Until the mid-30s, rates are estimated to be approximately 1.5–2 times greater in males than females. Later, rates decrease for both sexes, with a narrowing sex ratio, until the mid-40s when there is a minor secondary peak for women. Male patients are likely to have more cognitive impairment and poorer premorbid functioning, more negative symptoms, and more severe deterioration over time. Female patients experienced more severe positive symptoms (hallucinations and persecutory delusions) and commit a greater number of suicide attempts. Women also show a considerably less severe course of the illness: they show a better social functioning and have fewer hospitalizations with shorter inpatient stays. Gender differences have also been well recognized in the response to antipsychotic treatment, with women being better responders than men are. Eating disorders in the past were considered as almost exclusively female disorders (F:M = 20:1), but that is changing rapidly. One million men have been shown to suffer from eating disorders in the USA. Males accounted for roughly 10.0–25.0% of eating disorder patients, with the number of men struggling from bulimia nervosa being more than those who struggle with anorexia. Research and knowledge on the topic are expanding rapidly, and recent literature elucidates gender-specific issues in terms of age of onset, weight history and compensatory exercise behavior, frequency of abuse record, and substance use rates. A later age of onset, premorbid obesity, and over-exercise are more likely in men. Around 30% of subjects suffering from an eating disorder were victims of sexual abuse (1:3 in women vs. 1:7 in men) and a substance use disorder is generally more frequent in subjects with eating disorder (particularly the use of steroids and growth hormones in affected men) in comparison to the general population
Enhancing Physical Activity with Immersive Virtual Reality:A Systematic Review
No full textThe aim of this article is to review how immersive virtual reality-enhanced physical activity (IVR-PA) can be used to improve psychological, physiological, and performance outcomes linked to exercising and to compare it with non-immersive virtual reality-enhanced physical activity (nIVR-PA) and with traditional physical activity (TR-PA). We also aimed to explore the effectiveness of IVR-PA in promoting psychological well-being and engagement in physical activity. A systematic literature review (Prospero CRD42022330572) was conducted following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines. OVID (including Medline, Embase, GlobalHealth, and APA PsychInfo), Web of Science, and Sport Discuss were searched. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Effective Public Health Practice Project Quality Assessment. The search identified 26,548 titles. After screening, 20 studies (the total number of participants was 798) published between 2009 and 2023 were included in this systematic review. The quality of the studies was rated as weak (n = 9), moderate (n = 10), or strong (n = 1). Overall, the reviewed studies indicated that, compared with TR-PA and nIVR-PA, IVR-PA was associated with an increase in enjoyment of physical activity, a reduction in perceived exertion, and increased rates of self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and exercise intention. Furthermore, some studies showed higher muscular strength and aerobic increase after an IVR-PA intervention compared with TR-PA. The findings suggest that IVR-PA can improve psychological, physiological, and performance outcomes linked to exercising, as well as improving psychological well-being and engagement in physical activity. However, owing to the methodological limitations of the reviewed studies, further research is encouraged.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
The role of relatives in pathways to care of patients with a first episode of psychosis
No full textAims: To explore the role of relatives in pathways to care of patients with a recent onset of psychosis. Methods: A total of 34 consecutive patients and their relatives from the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Naples SUN participated in the study. Pathways to care were retrospectively evaluated by administering the Pathways to Care Form and the Nottingham Onset Schedule (NOS) to patients, relatives and treating physicians. Relatives were addressed with the Family Involvement in Pathways to care Schedule (FIPS). Results: Duration of untreated illness (DUI) and duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) were 145.4 (±141.9) and 33.3 (±54.0) weeks, respectively. Help-seeking delay was 17.6 (±45.0) weeks. The first request for help was made by relatives in 76% of cases. Among health professionals, general practitioners were those most frequently contacted, followed by psychiatrists, neurologists or psychologists. Stigma and wrong attribution of psychotic symptoms were the main reasons for help-seeking delays. Conclusions: Relatives play a crucial role in pathways to care of patients with psychosis. DUI and DUP could be reduced by interventions aimed at increasing knowledge of early symptoms in the general population, and by the provision of psychiatric consultations in non-stigmatizing settings for young people with psychological distress
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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